Isner, Harrison, Roddick, Raonic (nearly American) all come to mind as players that have really limited backhands. Exceptions to the rule include Agassi, and possibly, Fish.

Most Americans want to play 'big man tennis' which is dominating with serve and put away forehand.

They view their backhand as merely a damage limitation device - so that they can stay in a rally long enough to use a forehand. Federer, Djokovic and even Murray can do all sorts of things off their own backhands to make their opponent uncomfortable - for them hitting a backhand is not about merely staying in a rally.

Why do you think this is? For a start, the USTA is known to be very quick to mould all players into using a 2hbh, and 1hbh is pretty much banned. But even when you're using 2hbh's, the 'American 2hbh' seems to be especially bad... Mechanically, what is wrong with it?

dumb poast.

canadian is not "nearly american"

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The amount of generic and ugly 2 handed backhands is higher now than ever before. Complete opposite of the 90s when a lot of guys had hideous one handed backhands. It is not just the americans, guys like Ferrer, Tsonga, Monfils, Granollers, Monaco, Troicki etc. have average and ugly 2 handed backhands.

The fact that u say ferret has an avg backhand is amusing he easily is in the top ten ATM

WHen you can hit a serve at 148 mph like John who cares about a back hand serve and forehand combo are more than enough to beat the worlds best which he has shown with wins over Novak and Federer last year

WHen you can hit a serve at 148 mph like John who cares about a back hand serve and forehand combo are more than enough to beat the worlds best which he has shown with wins over Novak and Federer last year

Again with this Isner crap? Rare wins over Fed and Djokovic don't count. If he had a backhand that wasn't borderline terrible, he would be closer to the top five.

Fed's backhand is gorgeous. it always has been. even in his match against aggassi as a teen (fed as a teen, not aggassi) people were commenting on how strong he was from the backhand. it's not just power, he has incredible variety from that wing. i can't think of a current american player that has a comparable backhand. can you name 2 please?

I don't think it's an American thing...for once. I think it just so happens we had a few guys with weaker backhands and maybe not great technique. But Fish, DY, Querrey all have backhands that seem very good to me(as JRoger posted above).

And Sampras' backhand was a bit underrated.

I think it's just what they are naturally comfortable with too. Kei was trianed in the US and his two-hander is stellar.

Connors had possibly the best backhand of the open era. At the very least, he's in a select group with just a few other players. It was Jimbo's backhand that enabled him to continue to rally effectively against players half his age.

The best two-handers come from players who habitually put a lot of shoulder and torso rotation into the shot (Connors, Djokovic). Too many players, including some of the Americans mentioned in this thread, rely on wristy, arm-oriented strokes that make it very easy to set up for a forehand on the next shot. If you're a savant, you can pull off a backhand stroke like that (Borg). If you're not, you'll produce a Courier/Roddick backhand. Note that when Connors was coaching Roddick, Andy's backhand improved because he paid more attention to footwork and body position. He also developed a decent slice. But by then it was too late to acquire a backhand that was a genuine strength; Roddick's goal was just to prevent it from being too great a liability.

It's not average. His BH has always been pretty good. Of course age probably has something to do with it getting slightly worse. In his prime people said his BH was his weakness because going to his FH was a death wish. It is only truly exposed by Nadal's topspin, and the high bouncing courts of today. Put Federer on the court in Cincy or the WTF and his BH's fine.